The Verge

The Xiaomi 13T Pro in blue. | Image: Xiaomi Xiaomi is launching the 13T and 13T Pro today, two smartphones that will benefit from more Android upgrades than what it's offered previously. Both are due to receive four major Android updates as well as five years of security patches, Xiaomi's communications director, Daniel Desjarlais, announced earlier this month.The Xiaomi 13T Pro will start at 649 (799, or around $790), while the 13T will start at 549 (649, or around $669), and both will be available starting today in the UK. The phones will primarily be sold in European markets, but based on Xiaomi's previous smartphone releases, they're unlikely to be officially available in the US. Image: Xiaomi Xiaomi 13T Pro in green. A support commitment of... Continue reading...

Image: Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Former foes have turned friends. Uber is listing more and more taxi drivers in its app, most recently in Los Angeles. How did the two sides come together? In short, money. Continue reading...

Image: EVgo Imagine buying a new car, and suddenly, most gas stations are broken. That's a reality new electric vehicle owners are finding when it comes to EV charging stations supplied by significant players like ChargePoint, Electrify America, and EVgo.Many stations often result in customers leaving without a recharge thanks to unreliable or damaged hardware, and the situation is growing worse over time. For some EV owners, it might feel like the companies behind the charging networks are asleep at the wheel. But occasionally they stick their heads up to let us know they realize there's a problem, and they're laboring to fix it.Today, for example, EVgo says it's made significant progress" with a renewal campaign designed to boost reliability... Continue reading...

Image: Sony Sony is releasing a custom pair of its LinkBuds S earbuds designed in collaboration with pop star Olivia Rodrigo. And the partnership goes beyond just style: this pair of the LinkBuds S will include two custom EQ modes that are optimized for each of Rodrigo's albums, Sour and Guts.These profiles were tuned by both Rodrigo and her producer Daniel Nigro and will be available within Sony's Headphones Connect app when you pair the signature LinkBuds S over Bluetooth. There's nothing stopping you from using the custom EQ profiles with other content, but it'd probably be wiser to stick with Sony's other presets when doing so.As for the outward design, both buds have a purple, marbled exterior - again, Sony claims styled by Rodrigo herself -... Continue reading...

The LG Gram Fold in its array of orientations. | Image: LG Following the likes of Lenovo, Asus, and most recently HP, LG has announced a new laptop built around a single large foldable display. The device is called the LG Gram Fold, and it'll be available to buy online in South Korea for 4.99 million won (around $3,697) from October 4th. An international release is yet to be announced.Like previous foldable laptops, the LG Gram Fold can be used in a variety of different orientations. If you're after a traditional laptop experience you can fold it upright and place a Bluetooth keyboard on its lower half to use the remaining part of its screen like a 12-inch laptop with a 3:2 aspect ratio. Or, if you ditch the physical keyboard, you can type on a virtual keyboard on the screen itself. Flattening... Continue reading...

Illustration by Hugo Herrera / The Verge An updated road map for combating climate change pours cold water on the idea that unproven technologies can play a major role in averting disaster.Today, the International Energy Agency (IEA) updated its road map for the energy sector to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It doubles down on the need to swiftly switch to renewable energy while minimizing the use of technologies that are still largely in demonstration and prototype phase today, including carbon capture and hydrogen fuels.The IEA, initially created to safeguard the world's oil supply, debuted its landmark road map in 2021 with a stark forecast for fossil fuels: calling for no more investment in new oil, gas, and coal projects. It laid out steps every... Continue reading...

Video by DJI / GIF by The Verge Now that Skydio has exited the consumer drone business and will never sell me the miniature self-flying drone of my dreams, I'm looking to DJI instead. The fancy marketing for its just-announced $759 DJI Mini 4 Pro suggests we're at least on the way - because it's the first Mini with omnidirectional obstacle sensing. Video by DJI / GIF by The Verge Advanced Pilot Assistance Systems (APAS) ensures additional safety by enabling automatic braking and bypassing during flight," the company's website reads. 2022's Mini 3 Pro could already see forwards, backwards, and down, but... we crashed it into a tree pretty fast. The binocular vision in every direction is a potentially huge upgrade if it works well, and the... Continue reading...

Raise your hand if you never heard of YouTube Premium Lite but now wish it was available in your area. | Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge After YouTube spent two years piloting Premium Lite, a lower-cost subscription plan for ad-free video viewing in select countries, the platform is pulling the plug on the tier. In an email to customers, YouTube announced it will no longer offer Premium Lite after October 25th, 2023.At 6.99 per month, YouTube's Premium Lite plan first launched in select European countries in 2021, including Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. It offers ad-free viewing across YouTube's spectrum of apps and formats but doesn't come with Premium's other features like offline downloads, background playback, or any YouTube Music benefits.But soon, existing Premium Lite subscribers will be left with two options: go... Continue reading...

Amazon's former hardware boss Dave Limp will take on the role of CEO at Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin after announcing his departure from Amazon, according to a report from CNBC. Internal documents obtained by the outlet reveal that Limp will replace outgoing Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith starting on December 4th.In August, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced that Limp is retiring from Amazon after an over 13-year career at the company. While at Amazon, he managed products like the company's Echo smart speakers and its Alexa smart assistant. He also managed Project Kuiper, Amazon's satellite internet project. Limp will reportedly be replaced at Amazon by Panos Panay, former head of Windows and Surface products who announced his own departure from... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google will send Gmail's basic HTML view sailing into the great beyond starting in January 2024, after which time everyone who uses it will be switched to the service's far more modern Standard" view. The change appears to have been announced around September 19th in a Google support article.Though the vast majority of people use the Standard view on their PCs without question, the HTML version of Gmail has its perks. The stripped-down Gmail experience loads quickly, and users can access it even on very outdated machines or with much slower connections. Its leaner nature makes it useful in situations where the best you can muster is a 3G connection (3G died last year in the US, but still). Screenshot: Wes Davis / The... Continue reading...

Nissan's Concept 20-23. | Image: Nissan Nissan is previewing a new sporty, Micro Machines-looking all-electric concept vehicle for Europe that signals its plans to go all-electric in the continent by 2030.Designed by Nissan's London design team, the non-production EV hatchback (called Concept 20-23) with circle daytime-running lights is compact - precisely like what you'd expect carmakers to make for the European market.Under its Ambition 2030" plan, Nissan says it'll globally introduce 19 new electric vehicles alongside eight electrified" vehicles. The automaker plans to fast-track the European market specifically, where it says a third of its global EV sales take place.Nissan says it now only sells hybrid and electric models in Europe - including the e-Power"... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Tinder announced a $499 per month invite-only subscription, Tinder Select, on Friday, Bloomberg reports. As part of the premium plan, subscribers can message people they've not matched with, while the most sought-after" users will see their profiles. Tinder says it only offers the plan to less than 1 percent of its users it considers extremely active" and that the applications will open up on a rolling basis.We know that there is a subset of highly engaged and active users who prioritize more effective and efficient ways to find connections," said Tinder's chief product officer, Mark Van Ryswyk. So we engaged in extensive tests and feedback with this audience over the past several months to develop a completely new offering."If... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit is going to let users spin Reddit gold into real money as part of its new Contributor Program," the company announced on Monday. It also shared details on the replacement for its old Reddit Gold system that let users show extra appreciation for posts or posts that they liked.Let's start with the Reddit Gold update since it's a critical part of that Contributor Program. Under the new gold system, you can long-press an upvote button on mobile or hover over it on desktop to be able to buy gold. Reddit will offer six different purchase options for awarding gold, starting at a $1.99 option to buy one gold and going up to $49 for 25 gold. After you give your gold, you'll see what Reddit calls a golden upvote" next to the comment or... Continue reading...

The port on the MagSafe Duo itself is Lightning, which may not matter too much if you're not traveling with the charger. | Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge It's officially autumn. The weather is starting to turn for many of us, and there are USB-C iPhones now out there in the world. The winds of change also mean there's a nice deal to be had on one of Apple's outgoing wireless chargers. You can get the Apple MagSafe Duo charger for an all-time low of $94.99 ($35 off) at Woot or for $1.75 more at Verizon.Apple quickly and unceremoniously discontinued the MagSafe Duo along with the MagSafe Battery Pack immediately after announcing the iPhone 15, likely because both use Lightning ports. I'll happily dance on the grave of the MagSafe Battery Pack, but the Duo - while flawed - actually has some redeeming qualities. The superthin, foldable charger can wirelessly charge a MagSafe iPhone at the... Continue reading...

Image: Code September and October are some of the most exciting months of the year if you've been waiting all year to see the latest and greatest tech, even if that just means meeting the annual new iPhone.Of course, events are also planned for entertainment, cars, and more, and you'll be able to catch all the latest news on major events and conferences here on The Verge.September 26th marks Vox Media's Code event, which includes Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel co-hosting alongside Platformer founder Casey Newton and CNBC senior media and tech correspondent Julia Boorstin. This year, Code features guests including X / Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino, Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl, Allen Media Group CEO and founder Byron Allen, and more.Also... Continue reading...

Eddy Cue, left, with Apple CEO Tim Cook. | Photo by Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images Apple senior vice president of services Eddy Cue is set to testify at the US v. Google antitrust trial on Tuesday, as the trial enters its third week. Cue's presence, which Apple fought to avoid, underscores Apple's importance to the Justice Department's case against Google - which alleges that the company's juggernaut search engine violates antitrust law. News of Cue's scheduling was posted by Bloomberg's Leah Nylen and Big Tech on Trial on X, formerly Twitter.Cue will be the second Apple executive to testify, following Apple AI head (and former Google executive) John Giannandrea on Thursday and Friday. Much of Giannandrea's testimony, however, took place under wraps in a closed courtroom. It's unknown how much of Cue's testimony will... Continue reading...

The Pixel Watch 2. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge Google will apparently give you a free Pixel Watch 2 if you preorder a Pixel 8 Pro, according to a promotional image posted by Kamila Wojciechowska. Wojciechowska also posted other leaks, including one published by 91mobiles with a promotional video that confirms previously rumored details about the Watch 2.The deal might soften the blow of a rumored price hike for the Pixel 8 Pro that puts the new phone at a $999 starting price. The original Pixel Watch starts at $349.99 for the non-cellular version, making the Pixel 8 Pro effectively a $650 phone with this deal, assuming the 8 Pro price rumor is accurate. Wojciechowska posted a screenshot over the weekend suggesting that, at least for business customers, the Pixel 8 Pro might keep the... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Today, we have ChatGPT, Bard, Alexa, Siri, and a thousand others. Nearly a half-century ago, there was GUS. GUS, which stood for the Genial Understander System, came out of a project at Xerox PARC in the 1970s that hoped to find ways to teach computers to understand human language.Enterprising engineers, researchers, linguists, and even users have been longing for a way to talk to their computers pretty much since computers first became a thing. You shouldn't have to communicate with your device by writing code, they figured, or by clicking in the right boxes in the right order. You should simply be able to talk to your computer like you'd talk to a person. Virtual assistants are a staple of science fiction, a decades-long startup... Continue reading...

Screenshot: iFixit via YouTube While Apple may have made the iPhone 15 Pro Max easier to repair physically, a teardown from iFixit reveals it still comes with the same parts pairing constraints as its predecessors.Like the iPhone 14, iFixit found that the iPhone 15 lineup has a redesigned midframe that you can access by removing the device's screen or back glass. However, iFixit notes that the internals on the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max live behind the screen, rather than the back glass, as is the case with the base iPhone 15 and 15 Plus as well as the iPhone 14 lineup.This inverted setup could make critical repairs like battery swaps slightly riskier than on the 14," iFixit says, as you're removing the expensive, fragile display rather than an inert sheet of... Continue reading...

Image: Getty Images Getty Images is partnering with Nvidia to launch Generative AI by Getty Images, a new tool that lets people create images using Getty's library of licensed photos.Generative AI by Getty Images (yes, it's an unwieldy name) is trained only on the vast Getty Images library, including premium content, giving users full copyright indemnification. This means anyone using the tool and publishing the image it created commercially will be legally protected, promises Getty. Getty worked with Nvidia to use its Edify model, available on Nvidia's generative AI model library Picasso.I got a hands-on look at Generative AI by Getty Images and got to play around with the tool for a bit. I mainly wanted to see how it generates photos, rather than... Continue reading...

Image: Meta Meta's Horizon Worlds 3D social platform is starting to roll out on the web and mobile, and it generally works a lot better outside of VR than I expected - though I wish there were more to do.Until recently, Horizon Worlds has only been available on Meta's Quest VR headsets. In VR, the app lets you explore a wide range of virtual experiences, including games, social spots, and giant 2D screens of concerts from huge music stars. It doesn't have anywhere close to the breadth of worlds on metaverse platforms like Roblox or Fortnite, and many Horizon Worlds experiences only have double- or single-digit numbers of players at any given time. But you can see the nascent beginnings of some kind of social network for 3D spaces.The thing is,... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Most of OpenAI's changes to ChatGPT involve what the AI-powered bot can do: questions it can answer, information it can access, and improved underlying models. This time, though, it's tweaking the way you use ChatGPT itself. The company is rolling out a new version of the service that allows you to prompt the AI bot not just by typing sentences into a text box, but by either speaking aloud or just uploading a picture. The new features are rolling out to those who pay for ChatGPT in the next two weeks, and everyone else will get it soon after" according to OpenAI.The voice chat part is pretty familiar: you tap a button and speak your question, ChatGPT converts it to text and feeds it to the large language model, gets an answer back,... Continue reading...

Kamiya onstage at Microsoft's 2016 E3 press conference. | Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images Hideki Kamiya, the Japanese video game director known for his work on Bayonetta, Viewtiful Joe, and The Wonderful 101, is leaving PlatinumGames. The news was first announced by the development studio on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, with Kamiya himself confirming the news via his own account shortly afterwards. He is due to officially leave Platinum on October 12th.Although neither party gave an exact reason for Kamiya's departure from the studio, where he currently serves as its vice president, it sounds like an amicable separation. We are truly grateful for his creative ideas, leadership, and contribution to the growth of PlatinumGames from our start-up to this very day," the company's statement reads. We believe that... Continue reading...

A teaser image of the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro released by Google. | Image: Google Google's upcoming Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro could come with seven years of software support, according to a leaked list of specs published by 91Mobiles. Kamila Wojciechowska, the original source of the leak, has also published US pricing for the two unannounced phones ahead of their October 4th launch. The Pixel 8 Pro is reportedly due to start at $899, the same as the 7 Pro, while the Pixel 8 could start at $699, a $100 increase over the $599 starting price for the Pixel 7.Wojciechowska notes that it's unclear whether Google will offer seven years of major Android OS updates for the phones, or whether the figure just refers to seven years of security patches (my money's on the latter, for what it's worth). But either way it's a decent... Continue reading...

The Writers Guild of America has been on strike since May 2nd. | Photo by Frederic J. Brown / AFP via Getty Images The Hollywood writers strike may be close to an end. After a more than 140-day work stoppage, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) announced on Sunday night that it reached a tentative agreement" with major Hollywood studios on pay, working conditions, and more.We can say, with great pride, that this is an exceptional deal - with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership," the WGA negotiating committee wrote in an email to members.WGA leadership said details of the agreement couldn't be shared until its language is finalized; after that, writers will have to vote to approve the deal. The guild said its leaders may end the strike as soon as Tuesday, once the contract is finalized and sent to members... Continue reading...

Victoria Thiem, system safety engineer from Lockheed Martin, checks the temperature of the actual size OSIRIS-REx's return capsule sample during the recovery rehearsal at Lockheed Martin, Waterton Canyon campus in Littleton, Colorado on Tuesday, June 27, 2023. | Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post The OSIRIS-REx mission, launched in 2016, has collected as much as several hundred grams of asteroid material, which could help scientists understand the earliest stages of the solar system. Continue reading...

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 7, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, first of all, hi, hello, welcome, and second of all, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I've been reading about the AI writing lives of real writers, rewatching the John Wick movies to prepare for The Continental, shopping for StandBy-capable iPhone docks, getting back into VR exercise with Supernatural boxing, and really, really, really hoping Microsoft's controller-first vision for the future of gaming comes true soon.I also have for you a new super-slick Windows laptop, two crypto-related podcasts you should hear, a reason to try Bard again, OpenAI's new image-making tool, a... Continue reading...

Driverless trucks from Waymo. | Credit: Waymo Governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed Assembly Bill 316, which would have required human attendants in driverless vehicles over 10,000 pounds, reports Reuters. The bill saw broad support among state legislators and was backed by the Teamsters and other labor organizations. At the moment,The governor wrote in his veto message that the bill is unnecessary for the regulation and oversight of heavy-duty autonomous vehicle technology," adding that the existing regulatory framework is sufficient."The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) was given regulatory authority over autonomous vehicles in the state. Newsom writes that the DMV consults the state highway patrol, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and others with... Continue reading...